In advance of the presentation I posed a few questions so that others could participate in the discussion. Tweets using the #phdtweet were displayed live on screen during my presentation. The questions and a few interesting responses are listed below.

As well as the fairly instrumentalist rationale set out in the main body of my presentation I also highlighted what I believe to be the moral case for use of social media by academic researchers.Queen Margaret University was founded with the aim of extending educational opportunities – specifically to women who in Victorian Britain were excluded from Higher Education. Today social justice remains a key part of what we do. In addition, the creation and sharing of knowledge is ultimately what academia is all about.

Twitter, and social media in general, provides new ways to both create and share knowledge. As such we should all consider how these new tools can help. I really like the following blog post from Brian Kelly on this subject:

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#phdtweet Do you want to observe the world or change it? If the latter, Twitter can help: http://bit.ly/IkDp6J

I believe there are great benefits to PhD students in engaging with Twitter. I would recommend that you get an account and, as a starting point, search for the #PhDchat. You will find it easy to make contact with other PhD students and academics.

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@qui_oui yes, #PhDchat is a really good resource. I would highly recommend it to all PhD students. #phdtweet

A lot of people have asked if there will be another #livetweet event – perhaps one focused on use of Twitter for learning and teaching activities. This is something I would certainly be interested in facilitating if there is sufficient interest.Watch this space!

Having read many blogs for quite a few years now I have finally decided to start my own.

The purpose of this blog is really to provide a site for personal reflections on my research, learning and teaching activities. By making this public I am hoping to stimulate some debate. This will (hopefully) lead to further discussion, debate and learning.